{"id":670803,"date":"2026-06-12T18:53:05","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T22:53:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=670803"},"modified":"2026-06-12T21:01:29","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T01:01:29","slug":"neymar-world-cup-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2026\/06\/12\/neymar-world-cup-injury\/","title":{"rendered":"Carlo Ancelotti Talks World Cup Expectation for Neymar"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Carlo Ancelotti named his Brazil squad for the 2026 World Cup, the inclusion of Neymar at the expense of players such as Joao Pedro caused plenty of discussion. Neymar did pick up a calf injury<\/span><\/a>, and speculation has been rife about when the 34-year-old would return. Ancelotti<\/span><\/a> has now revealed the expectations regarding the attacker’s involvement in the competition.<\/p>\n

Brazil Set to Face Morocco on June 13<\/h2>\n

Brazil Ready for 2026 World Cup<\/h3>\n

Brazil are set to open their 2026 World Cup campaign against Morocco on June 13<\/a>. They have been on a good run in their warm-up games, and finished their preparations against Egypt with a 2-1 victory.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Carlo Ancelotti\u2019s team will be expected to make the later stages of the competition at a minimum, and will be looking to Marquinhos and Alisson to keep things quiet defensively. There have been better Brazilian sides, of that there is little doubt. But they still have plenty of talent, such as Bruno Guimaraes, Vinicius Junior, Gabriel, and Raphinha, among others.<\/p>\n

Read More<\/strong>:<\/span> 2026 World Cup Pivot Games: The Matchups Set to Decide Every Group<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/smartframe-embed><\/p>\n

Ancelotti Gives Latest Update on Neymar<\/h3>\n

Speaking in the build-up to Brazil vs Morocco, Ancelotti revealed the latest on Neymar\u2019s availability:<\/p>\n

\u201cNeymar is working very hard to recover as quickly as possible. The expectation is that he will recover and rejoin the group next week.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brazil 2026 World Cup Squad<\/h3>\n

Goalkeepers:<\/strong> Alisson, Ederson, Weverton<\/p>\n

Defenders:<\/strong> Alex Sandro, Bremer, Danilo, Douglas Santos, Gabriel Magalh\u00e3es, Ibanez, Leo Pereira, Marquinhos, Wesley<\/p>\n

Midfielders:<\/strong> Bruno Guimar\u00e3es, Casemiro, Danilo Santos, Fabinho, Lucas Paqueta<\/p>\n

Forwards:<\/strong> Endrick, Gabriel Martinelli, Igor Thiago, Luiz Henrique, Matheus Cunha, Neymar, Raphinha, Rayan, Vini Jr.<\/span><\/p>\n

Read More<\/b>: <\/span>2026 FIFA World Cup Power Rankings: 15-19 Including Belgium and Colombia<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/smartframe-embed><\/p>\n

Brazil Squad News<\/h3>\n

Since the squad was named, Wesley picked up a thigh injury<\/span><\/a> in the 2-1 win vs Egypt, and was soon ruled out of the tournament, and replaced by Manchester United-bound midfielder Ederson.<\/p>\n

It remains to be seen what involvement Neymar will have in this World Cup, but the news of his potential return for the second game against Haiti on June 20 will be a boost for his manager and teammates.<\/p>\n

Featured Image Credit<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

IMAGO \/ Nicolo Campo<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Carlo Ancelotti named his Brazil squad for the 2026 World Cup, the inclusion of Neymar at the expense of players such as Joao Pedro caused plenty of discussion. Neymar did pick up a calf injury, and speculation has been rife about when the 34-year-old would return. Ancelotti has now revealed the expectations regarding the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4106,"featured_media":647156,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[161,30,2132],"tags":[798,621,145,389],"class_list":["post-670803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-football","category-news","category-world-cup","tag-2026-world-cup","tag-brazil","tag-carlo-ancelotti","tag-neymar"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=670803"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":670818,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670803\/revisions\/670818"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/647156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}